Other themes include domestic relationships, aging, and two fascinating ghost stories. Comeuppance is also a theme in the story, “Old as the Hills”, a bitingly funny meeting between a widow and an ex-wife. Also clairvoyant, this much ignored bird is able to warn a kind servant girl of the deadly event that will soon occur. Like Lively, the hen keenly watches all the human activities that occur there, all the presumed secret rendezvous. The narrator of the title story is an exotic bird, a purple swamp hen, pet garden resident of a wealthy family living in the path of the soon to erupt Vesuvius. These stories, while definitely not trite, often had me smiling or nodding in agreement. Most collections I have read are dark and melancholy, qualities I do enjoy. They are often just the right length to read before nodding off at night. In the last few years, I have become a fan of short stories. Lively’s 2017 short story collection is an absolute delight. She was married to Jack Lively, who died in 1998. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List, and DBE in 2012. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. Her other books include Going Back Judgement Day Next to Nature, Art Perfect Happiness Passing On City of the Mind Cleopatra’s Sister Heat Wave Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt Spiderweb her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked The Photograph Making It Up Consequences Family Album, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award, and How It All Began. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger.

She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children.

The purple swamp hen and other stories